Research, Practice and Teaching United: Implementing AACN Academic Guidelines in a Community Based Behavioral Health Setting

The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education (2021) published by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing encourages bridging the gap between education and practice and continues to support the importance of providing clinical educational experiences in diverse settings. Another AACN document, Defining Scholarship for Academic Nursing Task Force Consensus Position Statement (2018), strongly encourages nursing faculty to engage in scholarship, a tradition that is integral to academic positions. This article demonstrates how these two important documents, one aimed at student competencies and curriculum and the other at nursing faculty development, can be connected to the mutual benefit of faculty and students alike. By revisiting Boyer's model of scholarship, the authors offer a new look at the integration of experiential learning that includes clinical practice, research, and competency-based education. The case study demonstrates that students and faculty can meet the tripartite mission of nursing education by creatively engaging in a community-based setting where they actively participate in all three pillars of academic nursing.